The village of Studebaker-on-Toast lay, as might be expected, on the river Toast, in the land of the Crackerheads. While not everything was perfectly idyllic and happy since the villagers' beloved Cracker Hockey team, the Penguins-on-Toast, had lost in the Conference Semi-Finals of the Cracker Hockey League's Saltine Cup Playoffs, the folks of the village were nonetheless prosperous and content.

The villagers worked hard and spent all of their free time indulging in the chief pleasure of that part of the world. Yes: birdwatching! Oh, the hours spent searching, spying, looking, listening, cataloging, and drawing all of the local feathered fauna was time well-spent, indeed!

But recently a sadness had come upon them. A hole in their lives! They began to realize that all the Corvidae had left.

Flown the coop, so to speak. Skeedaddled.

Oh, the Picidae were still around. As were the Alaudidae and the Hirundinidae. And of course the Columbidae were still there (too many of them, frankly).

But no more ravens. No more magpies, jays, or crows.

The villagers were perplexed. But they couldn't explain it, so they went on with their work and their leisure. However, an eerie feeling of unease over the departed birds haunted them in the quiet of their individual thoughts during those nights when they lay abed, unable to fully drift off to sleep.

And well it should. For the wisest and most intelligent of all the birds knew something the Crackerhead villagers didn't:

Ah, but that's not the Crackerhead way. No, indeed! Stay in your village. Toil in this pit of death! Expose these vile creatures before they expose yer innards! Lynch them! Lynch them all!! Yea! Lynch them and send them screaming all the way back to HELL!!!

NOTE: thg and I have tweaked the rules ever so slightly. The most important change is to the Angel role. The purpose of the change was to avoid the possibility of a tie. Only the Angel will know the exact powers/limitations (unless he or she chooses to reveal them).

It is now Night 1.

Alpha: Whom do you want to kill or recruit?Seer: Whom do you want to see?Angel: Whom do you want to protect?Vig: Never mind, you have no bullets tonight!

Let's put a deadline of 2 PM on this night phase. Please send PMs to redwill and thehockeyguru.